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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26686531">an only child of the universe</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krewlak/pseuds/Krewlak'>Krewlak</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>this has been said so many times (i'm not sure if it matters) [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Riverdale (TV 2017)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Fred Andrews/Mary Andrews Background, Little Women References</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 03:49:32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>18,420</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26686531</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krewlak/pseuds/Krewlak</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>she’s named for a saint of selflessness. a mother who gave up everything to help her son reach sainthood. </p><p>too bad gladys isn’t the self-sacrificing type.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>FP Jones II/Gladys Jones</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>this has been said so many times (i'm not sure if it matters) [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1324529</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>an only child of the universe</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/veronicassadboi/gifts">veronicassadboi</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>i did not plan on posting this today but it's happening anyways because fuck it. please listen to heart of glass and wheel in the sky on repeat while reading this story. that's what i did.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>If we are all alive ten years hence, let's meet, and see how many of us have got our wishes</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Gladys is thirty-eight when Billy Menken calls for the first time since Gladys moved to Riverdale. She’s not even sure how he got her number other than looking her up online or something. Either way, Gladys finds she can’t move away from the sink while Jughead holds the phone out for her. She never thought her life in Toledo would ever catch up with her, never thought that anyone who knew her then would want to catch up with her.</p><p>“Mom?” Jughead asks, raising his eyebrows. He’s finally growing into his hat but he needs a haircut. “Archie’s waiting. Should I just take a message?”</p><p>“Sorry, baby,” Gladys mumbles, wiping her hands on her jeans. She takes the phone and presses a kiss to his cheek. “Tell Red I said hi.”</p><p>“Sure thing, Mom,” Jughead grumbles, wiping at his cheek like any thirteen-year-old would. Gladys loves him for it. “See ya.”</p><p>“Love you,” she calls after his retreating back, hand over the receiver. She takes a moment to collect herself, to try and prepare for whatever it is that Billy Menken has to say to her. “Hello?”</p><p>“Gladys? Little Gladys?” Billy asks, voice low and rumbling exactly how she remembers. “That you?”</p><p>“I’m older than you, Billy Menken, or have you finally drank yourself senile?” Gladys snaps, rolling her eyes. She’s reminded just how little she actually likes Billy. “Why are you calling me?”</p><p>“There’s that attitude,” Billy murmurs before clearing his throat. “Your dad’s sick, Gladys. Really sick.”</p><p>“And?” she asks through a tight throat. She’s thought of him a few times over the years. Never kind thoughts but thoughts all the same. “Can’t the army take care of their man?”</p><p>“Just thought you should know,” Billy says with a put-upon sigh. As if he’s doing her a favor by bringing her this news about a man she hasn’t talked to in almost twenty years. “Being his daughter and all that. I know you and him have had your differences but, well, death changes that.”</p><p>“That your opinion or his?” Gladys asks, knowing the answer already. “Look, if Jonny Laurence wanted to talk to me, he could have reached out. He didn’t. That pretty much sums it up, don’t it?”</p><p>“Gladys, I expected better from you,” Billy says with another sigh. She grips the phone a little tighter and cracks her neck. “You always took such good care of me when I was little.”</p><p>“Look, Billy, thanks for calling but I got to go pick up my kid,” Gladys snaps, tired of the guilt trip and the gnawing in her stomach.</p><p>“You think about what I said, Gladys,” Billy snaps back. “You think about the kind of person you are, who you’re trying to be in front of your kids, and you think about your old man dying alone because you’re too goddamn stubborn to swallow your pride.”</p><p>“You want to talk about stubbornness and pride?” Gladys nearly screams. “Then you fucking talk to that man. Don’t fucking call here again, Billy, you hear me?”</p><p>She doesn’t wait for an answer before slamming the phone down into the cradle. Her hands are shaking and she’s breathing heavy, giant chest-fulls of air that does nothing to slow her pounding heart. She’s not even sure if she’s angry that Billy called. He was just trying to do the right thing by the man who lives next to his mother. It wasn’t anything worth biting his head off over.</p><p>She shakes the thought from her head and wipes her hands on her jeans, grabbing her jacket from the hook by the wall. There’s a snake on it’s back even though they don’t own her the way they own her husband. She’s got the tattoo but she never did the dance, never went through the initiation the proper way. Not only wouldn’t FP let her, she didn’t want that. More often than not, it was bad enough being shackled to FP by their kids and the rings on their fingers. She didn’t need another thing tying her to him.</p><p>She picks up Jellybean from the daycare that the Topaz family runs out of their dilapidated house at the edge of the trailer park. It’s not much to look at but they go on creek walks in the summer and it’s warm during the winter which is more than Gladys can offer between her job at Pop’s and the often unpaid electric bill that prevented them from running a space heater all winter in the trailer.</p><p>Toni Topaz is sitting on the porch steps with Jellybean sitting on the step below her between her knees. Jelly’s smile brightens when she sees her mother but she doesn’t move from the stoop. Toni is braiding her hair and doesn’t bother to look up from her work.</p><p>“How you manage to get that girl to sit still for more than two minutes will always amaze me, Toni,” Gladys says as she leans against the porch railing. Toni smirks a little and looks up at Gladys with raised eyebrows. “Though if I had as many cousins as you, maybe I’d be a bit more patient.”</p><p>“Nah,” Toni says, shaking her head. There’s still a sweet little blush that creeps up on Toni’s face that Gladys doesn’t miss. “It’s just cause I can braid hair. Should have seen her running around with the rest of the rugrats, like, five minutes ago.”</p><p>“Toni does the best braids!” Jellybean chimes in, jerking her head to look at her mother. Toni sucks her teeth and straightens Jellybean’s head again, turning her to face forward with a hand at each temple. “And when they come out my hair is all wavy and curly looking and pretty.”</p><p>“What’s wrong with having straight hair? You got your grandma’s hair, long and straight and soft,” Gladys murmurs, reaching out to tug on a loose bit of hair. Jellybean makes a face and bats at her hand. “Come on, Jellybelly. We’ve got to cook dinner tonight. Dad’s on dish duty.”</p><p>Toni snorts a little as she finishes up braiding Jellybean’s hair. Gladys raises her eyebrows at her, silently asking for an explanation. She knows she hadn’t made a joke. Toni blushes again and shrugs, “Just hard to imagine FP doing dishes is all.”</p><p>“Yeah, well, he might be the Serpent King at the Wyrm but I’m the queen in that trailer,” Gladys says, even though the words taste bitter on her tongue. FP hasn’t treated her like a queen in years. In fact, Toni’s image of him as the Serpent King is more true than any other mask FP has worn over the years. “Make sure you find someone who treats you the same, you hear me?”</p><p>“Sure thing, Mrs. Jones,” Toni says, shaking her head and laughing. She tilts Jellybean’s head back and places a smacking kiss on her forehead. “All right, sugarlump. Get out of here or Aunt Tabby’ll keep you.”</p><p>“Trust me, Bean,” Gladys murmurs, talking her head and kissing her between her braids. “You don’t wanna live with the Topaz family. Ain’t no damn room.”</p><p>Jellybean laughs and waves at Toni as they walk away, shouting her goodbyes to the kids who are still playing in the yard. Gladys asks Jelly about her day as they walk home and lets the sweet babble of her baby girl soothe away the sting of Billy’s phone call. There are two bikes in front of the trailer when they walk up - FP’s and Tall Boy’s. Gladys sucks her teeth and holds Jellybean’s hand a little tighter.</p><p>“I’m telling you, F, it’s a good deal,” Tall Boy is saying as they walk through the door. “The Ghoulies aren’t going to give us another chance like this one.”</p><p>“Ghoulies?” Gladys asks, raising her eyebrows at the two men. “Since when are you dealing with the Ghoulies?”</p><p>“How many times you gonna ask about Serpent business while being on the outs with the Serpents?” Tall Boy asks with a sneer. She likes him about as much as she liked Roger Smith and she knows that the feeling is very mutual. “Thought you weren’t involved?”</p><p>“And I thought you had your own trailer, Tall Boy,” Gladys snaps. She shoos Jellybean towards the back room she shares with Jughead to change her clothes. “Yet I’m always finding you inside of mine with my husband.”</p><p>“Alright, Glads,” FP says with an uneasy smile. His eyes are bloodshot and there’s a few day’s worth of stubble on his cheeks. He clearly hadn’t planned on seeing her today or he would have at least tried to clean up from his most recent bender. “No need to bite the man’s head off. He’s just heading out.”</p><p>“Think about what I said, FP,” Tall Boy murmurs as he pulls FP into a tight hug, patting him on the back twice. “A chance like this isn’t going to last for very long.”</p><p>“Give me a day to mull it over,” FP replies, leading Tall Boy to the door. He gives Gladys a crooked smile that does nothing to reassure her but she waits until Tall Boy is on the other side of the door to say something. “Don’t worry about it, Glads, just Tall Boy talking big like always.”</p><p>“Just making sure you’re not listening to his big talk,” Gladys says, pointing a finger at him. “Last thing we need is another one of Tall Boy’s schemes getting you into trouble with Keller.”</p><p>“He’s just trying to be a good VP,” FP mutters, reaching into the inside pocket of his jacket for his flask. Gladys sucks her teeth, making her dislike well known, but it doesn’t stop him from bringing it to his lips. “Trying to bring some extra cash into the Southside, you know?”</p><p>“Oh yeah?” Gladys mutters under her breath as she moves around the living room, tidying up things that are already tidy. She needs something to do with her hands so she doesn’t wring his thick neck. “And just how legal is this new money venture?”</p><p>“I told you not to worry about it,” FP says, following her around the living room with a hand out. That’s answer enough to her question. Gladys bats him away at first but he doesn’t stop until he’s got an arm around her waist and he can pull her down onto the couch with him. He kisses her cheek, breath smelling of cheap booze and cheaper cigarettes. “All you need to worry about is making me dinner.”</p><p>Gladys elbows him in the side and stands up, running a shaking hand through her hair. Her skin feels too tight and she hates everything about this tiny trailer. About her tiny life. She turns to look at FP but he’s turned his attention to the TV and whatever bullshit show he’s put on. It’s easy then, making the decision to leave, easiest thing in the world.</p><p>It takes her a week to quit her job at Pop’s, gather as much cash as she can, and pack a bag for herself and Jellybean. She doesn’t bother calling Billy back. It’s none of his business whether or not Gladys comes home. Besides, she’s sure that he’s still living in his mother’s house and he’ll know soon enough that she’s back in town.</p><p>She barely explains it to FP - just mumbles something about going out of town for a few days to see family when he’s hungover one morning and barely paying attention. She doesn’t know if it’s her being a coward or just not caring what FP thinks anymore. Either way, she knows that FP isn’t the real problem in this situation.</p><p>Jughead doesn’t understand why she’s asking him to pack a bag and has no problem letting her know that. “School starts in, like, two weeks. You can’t really expect me to just go on an indefinite trip.”</p><p>“Jug,” Gladys sighs. “Please. I am tired of arguing with you.”</p><p>“Then let me stay here!” Jughead snaps, gesturing to the trailer around them. Gladys snorts and shakes her head but Jughead quickly course corrects. “I know it’s not exactly the house but it’s my home and I don’t want to leave. I have friends and a life and school!”</p><p>“Fine!” Gladys shouts over him. His eyebrows shoot up towards his hairline and all of the fight seeps out of Gladys. She doesn’t want to fight with him and it's a reason to come back. She immediately feels guilty for even thinking about her son that way but it doesn’t change the truth of it. “That’s . . . just fine, Jug.”</p><p>“Really?”</p><p>“Yeah,” she says, reaching out to cup the back of his neck. She pulls him forwards into a tight hug that he doesn’t fight her on. “Just promise me you’ll keep your grades up.”</p><p>“Of course!” Jughead says, sounding slightly offended but he didn’t pull away from her hug.</p><p>“And take care of your dad,” she mumbles into his hat. “He needs looking after. You know that.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Jughead mumbles back, nodding a little. “Yeah, I know.”</p><p>“I’ll be back before you know it,” she says as she pulls away. Her eyes are a little wetter than before but Jughead doesn’t say anything about it. He sticks his hand in his back pocket, hip cocking out the same way his father’s does. It looks awkward and silly on him but she knows he’s trying to be grown up. “You believe me?”</p><p>Jughead rolls his eyes at the question - a stupid, little game that they played when Jughead was little and everything had spiralled out of control - before answering, “Moms don’t lie.”</p><p>“That’s right,” Gladys says, throat tight and damn near choking. “Moms don’t lie.”</p><p>Her and Jellybean are gone the next day. Jellybean cries when they pass the Riverdale sign but Gladys keeps it together. Riverdale was never really home to her, after all.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>love is a great beautifier</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Gladys is ten and she’s woken by warm hands on her face, blanket tugged from her body and thrown onto the floor. She groans and bats at the hands, searches blindly for her blanket. It’s only March and the early mornings are still cold like winter days. The hands on her face move to her arms, pulling her to sit up, “Come on, little one, come on.”</p><p>“Mama?” Gladys mutters, rubbing at her eyes and blinking in the darkness of her room. Her mother brushes her hair back from her face and smiles in the moonlight.</p><p>“Come on, moon baby,” her mother whispers, pulling Gladys from bed. She stumbles after her mother, eyes half open and feet cold against the bare wood floors.</p><p>There’s a blanket laid out in the backyard with a blue frosted cupcake sitting in the middle. Gladys can’t help the excited gasp that slips from her mouth. She almost rushes forward but remembers her manners at the last minute, looking up at Mama with wide eyes, “Is that for me?”</p><p>“Well, why would it be for you?” Mama asks with that crooked smile that says she’s just teasing. “It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with my moon baby turning ten today, could it?”</p><p>Gladys smiles wide, showing off her many missing teeth, and shakes her head, “No way.”</p><p>“No way, Jose,” her mother agrees, pressing on her nose like a button. She takes Gladys’s hand and leads her to the blanket, pulling Gladys into her lap as she sits down. “Happy birthday, moon baby.”</p><p>Gladys grabs the cupcake and eats the icing first, smearing it all over her face. Mama wipes it off with a finger and licks it clean much to Gladys’s amusement. After she’s eaten the rest of the cupcake, Mama leans back with Gladys so they’re laying down and staring up at the stars.</p><p>“Tell me about my name, Mama,” Gladys asks, reaching out to play with the locket hanging from her mother’s neck. “And the night you knew I was in there?”</p><p>“I’ve told you that story so many times,” Mama says with a sigh. “Aren’t you tired of hearing it?”</p><p>“Mama, please?” Gladys whined, clasping her hands together. “For my birthday?”</p><p>“For your birthday,” Mama says, kissing the top of Gladys’s head. “The night I found out you were coming, it was a full moon. I couldn’t sleep and your daddy was away for work.”</p><p>“He’s always away for work,” Gladys mutters but Mama just shushes her and keeps going.</p><p>“I couldn’t sleep, so I went outside with a blanket and laid down on the lawn,” Mama says, voice soft in the night. “Just like we’re doing right now. It was warm out and there were lightning bugs everywhere. After a while my eyes drifted closed and I must’ve fallen asleep and do you know why?”</p><p>“Because you weren’t alone anymore,” Gladys continues from memory. Mama nods and Gladys smiles. “The person who was with you was so beautiful you knew it was just a dream.”</p><p>“Exactly. Because no one could ever be that beautiful,” Mama says. She combs her fingers through Gladys’s hair and pulls her closer. “She put a finger to her lips and then put a hand on my stomach and that’s when I knew.”</p><p>“I was in there,” Gladys whispers.</p><p>“Exactly, my moon baby,” Mama whispers back. “I knew I was pregnant. I started to laugh and the beautiful woman laughed with me until we were both out of breath. And when we both had caught our breath I heard your name whispered into the night and I knew the beautiful woman was the one who was talking even though her mouth didn’t move.”</p><p>“Gladys.”</p><p>“Gladys,” she whispers back. “The same name as the beautiful woman who came to see me. She was a mother, too. A great mother. A saintly mother who brought her children into sainthood with her. And she was promising me a baby girl. My moon baby girl.”</p><p>“Moon baby,” Gladys whispers against her mother’s neck. She sighs and snuggles into her arms a little more, inhaling the smell of laundry detergent that’s always on Mama’s skin.</p><p>“I saw you in the stars after that night,” Mama continues, rocking Gladys a little. Her hands are tight on Gladys’s arms but she doesn’t mind. She likes how hard Mama holds on, it’s better than the nothing that she gets from Daddy</p><p>“Thank you, Mama.”</p><p>“Of course, Gladys,” she says softly. She passes her hand over Gladys’s hair and hums a little. She hums and hums, rocking Gladys back and forth until she’s slipping off to sleep. “Happy birthday, moon baby.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>A quick temper, sharp tongue, and restless spirit were always getting her into scrapes</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Gladys is thirty-three when FP comes home with blood on his knuckles and his Serpent jacket on his shoulders. He doesn’t see her as he turns to close the door as quietly as he can. He knows that Jughead sleeps light as a feather just like Gladys (their little boy seemed to pick up all of Gladys’s bad habits) and the last thing he wants to do is wake Jughead up. He shrugs his jacket off and hangs it in the back of the closet, in the corner he thinks she doesn’t check. Gladys is forever surprised by how stupid her husband tends to be.</p><p>“Bout time you wandered home,” Gladys murmurs from the couch, making him jump. He presses a hand to his chest and leans back against the closet door, banging his head. “You trying to wake up the whole damn house?”</p><p>“Says the woman who’s trying to give me a heart attack,” FP replies. He takes a step away from the closet, rubbing the back of his head with a sheepish grin. She loves that grin. It’s sweet and she used to think only for her. “What are you doing sitting in the dark? Shouldn’t you be in bed by now?”</p><p>“Don’t do that,” Gladys says, shaking her head. “Don’t you try and talk to me like there’s nothing more important going on.”</p><p>“I’m just home late,” FP says, waving her off. She sucks her teeth and rolls her eyes, leaning back into the couch to cross her arms. FP turns on the living room light and drops into the armchair he insisted they buy even though she hated it. “Ain’t nothing to fret over.”</p><p>“Home late,” Gladys agrees. “Again.” FP groans and rolls his eyes. “Bloody knuckles. Again.”</p><p>“Enough.”</p><p>“Smelling like booze. Again.”</p><p>“Come on, Glads.”</p><p>“Wearing that goddamn jacket!”</p><p>“Stop it!” FP shouts, standing up from the chair. He menaces over her, mouth pressed into an angry frown. His hand is half raised, fingers curling into a half-formed fist. He lets out a slow breath through his nose before pointing at her. “Just stop it before you wake the boy up.”</p><p>“Sit the fuck down then and tell me what is going on with you, FP,” Gladys hisses, leaning forward a little and baring her teeth. “You don’t get to keep secrets from me, FP Jones. So fucking spill it.”</p><p>FP sighs and runs a hand over his face. He tucks his hand into the back of his jeans and looks to the front window. It’s dark out and it acts like a mirror. They look like some fucked-up caricature of a Norman Rockwell painting with their nice living room and livid faces. It takes him a long minute before he looks back at her but his shoulders have dropped and the angry tilt of his mouth has softened into something more like a grimace.</p><p>“I got kicked out when I was a kid. My old man,” FP starts, telling a story that she’s already heard. But she can tell that he needs to say it, that he needs to tell the story again to get his point across. “Was a piece of shit but the Serpents were family to me. They treated me better than family.”</p><p>“I know, baby,” she says with a sigh. She’s still mad, still aching for a fight, but she keeps her mouth shut for once.</p><p>“Roger Smith always treated me right and with him being so sick,” he continues and Gladys inhales sharply at the name. She’d managed to avoid Roger through the years but she knew that man was as much a part of FP’s life as she was. “He treated me right and he made that gang my family and without him to lead them? They’re lost, Glads.”</p><p>“That’s what you’re feeding me?” Gladys asks after a long minute. It’s not the right thing to say based on how FP’s face falls but she doesn’t have anything else. Gladys digs her nails into her sides and tries to bite back the snark that wants to come out. It’s a losing battle. “You’ve been slithering your way to the Wyrm ever since we moved to Riverdale. Don’t feed me some bullshit about them needing you.”</p><p>“What else do you want me to say?” FP asks through his teeth. He leans back in the armchair, kicking up one of his feet to rest on his knee. He rubs a hand over his mouth and exhales loudly through his nose. “They’re family, Gladys! Shouldn’t have to justify myself on this shit!”</p><p>“You have to justify the fucking secrets and lies, FP!” Gladys hisses back, trying to keep her voice down. “You want to be a Serpent at night and Mr Suburbs during the day? So fucking be it but you stop keeping secrets. You stop lying to me, FP Jones!”</p><p>“I’m trying to keep you out of this shit, Gladys!” FP shouts without any thought at all. Gladys winces a little but FP doesn’t seem to notice or care. “Serpents aren’t safe! Aren’t something you bring round to the Northside!”</p><p>“Then make a choice, FP,” Gladys snaps. “Don’t sneak back and forth! Be a man and make a goddamn stand!”</p><p>“Oh fuck off, Gladys,” FP says with a scoff, rolling his eyes. He pulls at his bottom lip before pointing a finger at her and smirking. “You think you know everything. So goddamn smart but you didn’t grow up here. You don’t know how Riverdale works.”</p><p>“Oh please!” Gladys groans. “Do not give me that ‘you’re not from here’ bullshit that Alice Cooper is forever going on about at those stupid PTA meetings that <em>you</em> said I should go to! You have me home playing goddamn house so you can fuck around with Fred all day and fuck around with the goddamn Serpents all night!”</p><p>“Is <em>that</em> what this is about?” FP asks with a loud laugh that’s anything but jovial. Gladys bites the inside of her cheek and looks away from the arrogant smirk on his stupid face. “You’re pissed cause you have a cushy stay-at-home life? That’s what all of this is about?”</p><p>“I never said any of that,” Gladys says, shaking her head. “You’re putting words in my mouth, FP Jones.”</p><p>“Rather be putting something else in your mouth,” he grumbles, more to himself than anything but that doesn’t stop her from hearing. Before she even has a chance to throw a fit, FP holds up a hand. “It was a goddamn joke. Don’t even start.”</p><p>“How about you try to not be a lying, piece of shit, pig then?” Gladys asks, sweet as possible considering the circumstances. “And stop treating me like every other wife on this godforsaken block. I walked away from you once, FP Jones. I swear to God I’ll do it again if you don’t start treating me like the fucking partner I am!”</p><p>FP opens his mouth to snap back at her but the phone ringing cuts him off. They both stare at the phone by the kitchen, neither of them moving to answer. It hardly seems the hour for good news. The answering machine picks up, their voices echoing through the quiet house, “You’ve reached the Jones residence! We’re not here to catch your call - leave a message and we’ll get back to you!”</p><p>“Gladys? FP?” Mary’s voice rings out. “You two there? Pick up.”</p><p>Gladys jumps from the couch to reach the phone first, FP staring after her with wide eyes. Gladys turns her back, tired of looking at him for so long and still so damn angry. She’s sure that FP is flipping her off behind her back. It’s something that he would do. “What’s wrong, Mary?”</p><p>“Nothing like that,” Mary says with a yawn. “Just wanted to let you know Jughead’s here.”</p><p>“Jesus,” Gladys hisses under her breath. She pinches the bridge of her nose and tries to keep her anger in check. She's mad at FP. She doesn’t need to turn that anger on her son. “I’m sorry, Mare. I’ll be right there to pick him up.”</p><p>“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Mary says with another yawn. Gladys almost thinks that it’s all some sort of performance but Mary’s better than that. If she were bothered, she’d tell Gladys. “He and Archie are in the treehouse with their sleeping bags.”</p><p>“I’m sure Red is loving the impromptu sleepover,” Gladys murmurs, relaxing a little bit. “I’m still really sorry about this, Mare.”</p><p>“Just tell me everything's okay over there,” Mary says in that no-nonsense tone of hers. Gladys bites her lip and glances at FP over her shoulder. He’s got a flask in his hand and a thousand yard stare that Gladys hates. “If FP is acting out, let me know I will straighten him out for you. I’ve been doing it since we were fifteen, after all.”</p><p>“We’re all good here, Mary,” Gladys says quickly. The last thing she wants right now is for the Andrews to descend on their home. Regardless of the hour, Gladys is sure that Fred would come running if he heard that there was trouble for the Jones family with Mary following close behind. “Don’t you worry at all. I bet they had this planned all along. You know those two.”</p><p>“Which reminds me to check the treehouse for contraband. It’s late enough, they don’t need to stay up any longer,” Mary says. Gladys can picture the determined look on her face but they both know that she’ll end up climbing into the treehouse with the boys to read them a story or something. “I’ll walk him home tomorrow, Gladys. Don’t worry about a thing.”</p><p>Gladys says her goodbyes and hangs up the phone without turning back to the living room. She’s sure that FP is a fair amount closer to being drunk and their conversation is far from over but she’s tired of fighting, tired of this game of back and forth that they always manage to fall into.</p><p>“You want in on the Serpents?” FP asks from behind her, breath warm against the back of her neck. She hadn’t heard him step up to her, hadn’t had the courage to bridge that divide herself. “You want to do jobs and use your fists to keep everyone in line? You want to roll around in the muck with us? Is that it?”</p><p>“I want to be a part of your life, FP Jones,” Gladys says, shaking her head. “I don’t know if that means getting my own snake tattoo or what but I’m your wife, dammit.”</p><p>“Let me think on it,” FP says. He grips her hip and pulls her back against him a little. Gladys goes without much of a fight. He runs his nose along the back of her neck, under her ponytail and along her hairline. “Just don’t go running away from me, Gladys. Don’t think I could manage without you by my side.”</p><p>Gladys groans and turns around, wrapping her arms around his neck. She kisses him deep, tugging on the lapels of that damned jacket. She pulls away after a moment and growls against his mouth, “I told you. I’m yours. No matter what.”</p><p>They don’t talk about her joining again. Not when she finds out shortly after that she’s pregnant again. It’s an accident, of course. The last thing that’s on either of their minds is growing their little family. It doesn’t change how happy it makes FP, how the first thing he does is call Fred to brag about beating him out for the bigger family. Gladys throws a towel at the back of his head but he just blows her a kiss as he waits for Fred to answer the phone.</p><p>Jughead takes it about as well as she expected - with a silent nod and a deep, brooding look. Gladys pushes the hair from his eyes and waits for him to figure out what it is that he wants to say. He’s only seven but he’s always been precise with how he expresses himself. It’s a fair amount better than either of his parents.</p><p>“Is it going to be a little brother or a little sister?” Jughead asks finally, looking up with wide eyes.</p><p>“I don’t know yet, baby,” Gladys says with a shrug. “It’s going to be a surprise for all of us. What’s it matter if it’s a boy or a girl?”</p><p>“Betty says being a little sister is the worst,” Jughead says with a concerned frown. Gladys smoothes the wrinkle between his eyebrows and smirks a little at how protective he already is.</p><p>“Well Betty Cooper doesn’t know everything,” Gladys says, tilting his chin up. She gives him a steady look and sits up a little straighter so that he mimics her, little face becoming even more serious if possible. “You, Forsythe Pendelton Jones the Third, are going to be a great big brother. No little brother or sister could ask for any different. Do you believe me?”</p><p>Jughead hesitates for a moment too long as he ponders her declaration, “Jughead. I asked - do you believe me?”</p><p>“Yes,” he answers finally, looking her dead in the eye. “Mom’s don’t lie.”</p><p>“That’s right,” Gladys says, shaking his head back and forth with a soft grin. “Mom’s don’t lie.”</p><p>Mom’s might not lie in the Jones house but it certainly did not apply to the dads. The late nights don’t stop and the drinking gets worse. They have their fair share of screaming matches over the matter, over the booze and the unpaid bills and the missed days at the construction site.</p><p>It’s gotten bad enough that Fred shows up on her porch two months into her pregnancy. She’s starting to show already, a soft expanding of her stomach that she can’t stop touching. Fred’s eyes are instantly drawn to her hand, to the cheap wedding band that FP always promised he would replace but never followed through on. He lets out a slow sigh before smiling at Gladys a little. “FP around?”</p><p>“You know he’s not, Fred,” Gladys says with a soft sigh. She doesn’t invite him inside. His eyes are tired and sad. She wonders briefly if things are still going sour with Mary but she doesn’t ask. It’s not really her place. He’s more FP’s friend than her own. “He miss another day at work or something?”</p><p>“Something,” Fred mumbles, rubbing the back of his neck. He lets out another bone weary sigh and Gladys gives in finally, opening the door and gesturing for Fred to follow her in. “I don’t want to bother you with this, Glads. Not in your condition.”</p><p>“Don’t go thinking just because I’m pregnant again that I can’t handle whatever mess my husband has gotten himself into, Fred,” Gladys murmurs as she pads into the kitchen to put the kettle on. “If he’s done something you might as well tell me. I’ll find out eventually.”</p><p>“It’s just a business matter,” Fred says, shaking his head. “You don’t need to worry about it, promise.”</p><p>Gladys frowns at Fred and takes a step forward. She’s not intimidating, barely the same height as Fred, but her glare is mean and she knows how to use it. Fred swallows and stumbles back half a step before squaring his shoulders and shaking his head. “I promised Mary that I wouldn’t bother you with this. You clean up after FP enough as it is.”</p><p>Gladys clenches her jaw and pushes at Fred’s shoulder, stomping her foot like a child at the same time. “You will tell me, Fred Andrews. So help me God.”</p><p>“Some,” Fred starts, craning his neck to the side to avoid looking at her. “Things have been going missing around a few sites. Little things, at first. Nothing anyone would miss.”</p><p>A sour feeling settles into Gladys’s stomach. She knew it was too good to last. The house. The steady paycheck. The heat always being on. New shoes for her son at the beginning of each school year. None of it was ever meant for Gladys and here was the universe correcting their mistake.</p><p>She cups her belly again and looks down at the soft curve of it. She knows her baby is too small for her to feel anything yet but she swears that there’s the tiniest kick. A tiny hello from the life growing inside of her.</p><p>Gladys takes a deep breath and swallows down the urge to run, the urge to pack it all up and leave and start over in a different town. It would be just her and her baby and the road and she’d never feel this gnawing want inside of her again.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>I wish I had no heart, it aches so…</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Gladys is thirteen and pulling at the skirt of her dress. She hates wearing dresses, hates wearing tights, hates wearing the Mary Janes that only come out for church. She hates everything about this day.</p><p>“Gladys! Let’s go!” her father calls from the bottom of the stairs. Gladys can hear the slight slur in his voice, the one that’s been there since Mama walked into the lake. “I don’t want to be late!”</p><p>She comes down the stairs with a sneer on her face not bothering to hide the contempt in her voice, “Are you sure you should be driving?”</p><p>Sgt Laurence gives her a long look that has Gladys apologizing quickly. He huffs and straightens the fit of his uniform and presses his hat onto his head before marching out of the house, expecting Gladys to follow after without complaint or delay. Which she does, of course. On today of all days, Gladys can do that at least.</p><p>They don’t say anything as they pull away from the house. Gladys turns the radio on rather than sit with her thoughts. Her father grunts and shifts in his seat, rolling the window down and hanging his arm out. The station is the last one that Mama listened to that afternoon. Some motown station coming out of someone’s basement. It’s staticky and comes and goes in waves but neither of them move to change it to something else. It makes it easier to pretend they aren’t going to a funeral. Not this one.</p><p>Gladys actually likes the song playing on the radio. Something crooning and slow. She has a memory of her father spinning Mama around the living room, lips pressed to where her neck met her shoulder. Mama was laughing and her long blonde hair was swaying free from the braid she usually kept it in. Gladys’s father had a little smile on his face that Gladys had never managed to earn for herself. No, that was Mama’s smile and Mama’s smile alone.</p><p>Gladys glances at the man sitting next to her out of the corner of her eye. She can’t imagine that man smiling at anything, least of all Mama. He must have been different once upon a time. There must have been a softness to him once that made Mama fall in love with him. Gladys had tried so hard to get her own smile, had tried to be the pretty princess she thought her father wanted, but it had never worked. She’d never gotten that smile.</p><p>Instead she’d come home with bleeding knees and ripped stockings. She’d come home with black eyes and busted lips. Never was one to turn down a fight. Especially when she was the only army girl on the block and the boys thought they could treat her like dirt.</p><p>“Are you going to be okay in there?” her father asks as they pull into the full parking lot. Gladys can’t imagine who they all are. Her mother didn’t have many friends and they didn’t have much family in Toledo. Her sisters were all still in Utah and they didn’t talk in the thirteen years that Gladys has been alive. Her father is an only child and his parents don’t talk to them. They’re all alone and Gladys never expected anyone to care about Jenny Jones. “Gladys?”</p><p>Gladys looks out the window at the small chapel. They still have their Easter decorations up from last week’s service. It makes the day so much sadder, seeing the brightly colored flowers and the signs of spring. She bites her lip and nods once before getting out of the car. Her father follows after her and they head into the church single file.</p><p>He steps around her just as they step into the chapel. Gladys pulls up short to stare at his back. He’s standing up straight, shoulders set, and heels thumping in a quick pace. Military man to the core. Gladys is almost sure that he’s going to go up to the front by himself but he pauses a few rows in. He doesn’t look back at her but the implication is clear.</p><p>
  <em>Fall into line, soldier.</em>
</p><p>She does as ordered and quickly catches up to him, falling into line, shoulder to shoulder in the aisle. They march to the front of the church and Gladys does her best not to look at the people that they pass. She can feel their stares though, can hear their whispers. Their voices echo through the small church even if Gladys can’t make out what they’re saying. Her father sits them down in the front pew next to Mama’s sisters. Gladys hadn’t even known they were coming, wouldn’t even know them to be her aunts if it weren’t for the long straight hair the same shade of blonde as Gladys’s and longer, straighter skirts that are obviously homemade.</p><p>As soon as the preacher starts talking, Gladys tunes out. She doesn’t want to hear what he has to say about her mother. She doesn’t want to hear some stale passage from a book about how much better it is on the other side. Gladys doesn’t care how much better it is. She’s here and Mama isn’t and none of it is right. How is any of this any better for <em>her</em>?</p><p>Her father puts his hand on her lower back, pushing her up and off the pew. They slowly head towards the open casket and Gladys holds her breath. It’s not something she wants to see, not something she needs to see, but she knows that her father had a different opinion on the matter.</p><p>“It builds character, Marge,” he’d hollered on the phone earlier that week. “I don’t give a damn about decency. The morgue said we could have an open casket and that’s what I’m going to do.”</p><p>Gladys finally exhales when they’re at the casket. She breathes out and lets her eyes drift downwards. It doesn’t look like her mother. Her mother would never wear that much makeup. Would never wear her hair curled like that. Would never look so prim and proper. That wasn’t her mother and Gladys decides that the body in the casket isn’t her mother either. Her mama is somewhere else. Somewhere warm and sunny like she always dreamed of, always whispered into Gladys’s ear as they guessed the shapes that the clouds made in the blue sky.</p><p>“Keep moving, Gladys,” he says softly, hand on her lower back. He pushes her forward and Gladys digs her heels in a little, reaching out to grab the edge of the coffin. Her father huffs and digs his knuckle into her back, trying to urge her forward. Gladys isn’t done, though. She’s not done staring down at the empty shell that used to be her mother. She wants to memorize every inch of this poor imitation of her mother. “Don’t make a scene. You’re done.”</p><p>Gladys doesn’t fight back this time.</p><p>The service ends quickly and everyone silently files out of the church to the gravesite. Gladys stays long enough to toss a handful of dirt into the open grave before spinning on her heel and marching away. Her father doesn’t even try to stop her this time. Her aunts whisper amongst themselves at the disrespect that Gladys shows.</p><p>She pulls out the cigarettes that she keeps in the secret pocket of her purse not caring if anyone sees her. It’s not like she isn’t already the embodiment of disappointment, growing up in that house with that mother, with that father. She knows what the people around town whisper to each other when they think she’s not listening. She knows the rumors that flew around town when her mother’s body was dragged out of the lake. A little cigarette smoke isn’t going to do anymore damage.</p><p>“You know your mother would hate to see you smoking, Gladys,” a soft voice says from behind her. Gladys just inhales deep and blows the smoke over her shoulder. There’s a delicate cough and a soft hand curling around her wrist, thin fingers plucking the cigarette from her hand. “So disrespectful.”</p><p>Gladys turns on her heel, ready to scream her head off, ready to curse out whoever thought they could mother her on today of all days. The words dry up in her throat when she sees the long, dangling necklaces that she swore were still in her mother’s jewelry box and the same soft green eyes that always smiled at her when she got home from school. Gladys squints in the sun and the woman’s facial features come into focus and it’s not Mama. Of course it isn’t. It’s just one of the nameless aunts that had never bothered to reach out before today.</p><p>“I’m Norma,” the woman says. She doesn’t offer a hand to shake or a hug or anything that might resemble comfort on a day like today. “Your aunt.”</p><p>“I don’t have any aunts,” Gladys says just to be spiteful, just to be mean. “If I did, I would certainly have met them before today. Before my mother died.”</p><p>“You mean before she killed herself,” Norma clarifies and Gladys jerks back like she’s been slapped. “Might as well be honest about it since you’re being so damn mean. She filled her pockets with rocks and walked into the lake like Virginia Wolfe. Jenny always was the dramatic one out of all of us.”</p><p>“What do you want?” Gladys asks, voice barely above a whisper. She reaches back into her purse and pulls out another cigarette. Norma just raises an eyebrow at her but Gladys ignores it as she lights up. Her hands are shaking and everything about the sunny afternoon feels wrong. Feels worse than the day her father pulled her out of school to explain in simple terms that Mama was dead. “You come over here just to give me shit?”</p><p>“Mommy always said that you raise a child outside of the church and you were bound to raise a demon straight from hell,” Norma says, looking Gladys up and down. Gladys is sure she’s taking note of her dress that barely touches her knees, the scuffs on her mary janes, the run on the shin of her stockings. “Guess she was right about that.”</p><p>Gladys rolls her eyes and turns her back on Norma again. She doesn’t need this. Doesn’t want this. Not from some mystery aunt that’s never said a word to her in her life. The rest of the funeral is wandering away from the gravesite. Gladys isn’t sure how many people are going to come by the house for the wake. Their neighbor, old lady Menken, has offered to get the house ready for them by putting out the nice china and sandwiches and potato salad. Gladys doesn’t want these strangers in her house, doesn’t want them trampling through the place where all of her memories with her mother are.</p><p>“You can glare at them all you want but you aren’t the only one who lost her,” Norma says from behind her. She puts her soft hand on Gladys’s shoulder again and squeezes tight. “You lost her today. We lost her years ago. Think about that, Gladys Laurence.”</p><p>Gladys doesn’t say anything as Norma walks away to join her sisters. The other four of them are watching Gladys across the parking lot, whispering amongst themselves. Gladys can barely tell the difference between their faces and she thinks she understands why Mama ran away all those years ago. With their long brown hair and their matching green eyes showing their distrust, their doubt, from a hundred yards away, Gladys wants to run away just as bad.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>I make so many beginnings there never will be an end.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Gladys is twenty-seven and her ankles are swollen and sore. She props her feet up on the ottoman and fans herself with her bookmark. All of the windows are open so there’s a breeze blowing through the living room but it’s not enough to cool her off. She hates the heat waves that Riverdale goes through. It never got this hot in Toledo.</p><p>It’s been like this all week and the house FP bought them doesn’t have central cooling like the Andrews house does. Gladys has spent her fair share of afternoons this week sitting in Mary’s kitchen drinking lemonade and comparing pregnancies, even though Mary’s already given birth to little Archie.</p><p>His hair is as bright red as Mary’s, eyes just as intensely brown as Fred’s. Gladys had stared at the small bundle as he napped in the crib FP had refurbished for them and wondered just what the life inside her was going to look like. If he’ll have her green eyes and light hair or if he’ll be all contrast like his dad - bright blue eyes and jet black hair.</p><p>“F? Baby?” Gladys calls from her chair. “Bring me some lemonade, why don’t you?”</p><p>He doesn’t answer back. Gladys rolls her eyes. She’s sure that him and Fred have the music too loud in the nursery.</p><p>He’d promised her that it would be done two months ago and here she is about ready to pop and the damn room still isn’t done. She’d had to go complain to Mary, who went to Fred, who showed up this morning with the leftover paint from Archie’s nursery, his toolbox, and a six pack. Gladys had frowned at the six pack but kept her mouth shut just to avoid a fight. She was in no mood to fight today.</p><p>Gladys flips her book over the arm of the chair, marking her page, before pushing herself out of the chair. She can hear Bruce’s crooning voice from the bottom of the stairs and Fred’s croaking voice singing along with him.</p><p>“Freddie, you haven’t got much better since high school,” FP says with a laugh. “Give it a rest. Let the man sing his song in peace.”</p><p>“The more the merrier, F,” Fred replies easily as Gladys goes up the stairs. “It ain’t a party if everyone isn’t singing.”</p><p>“Let me write that one down,” FP says with another laugh. He always laughs so much when Fred’s around. Gladys likes that, likes how easy things are when Fred and FP are talking and not fighting. She knows that Mary feels the same way.</p><p>“You boys almost done?” Gladys asks as she steps into the room. It smells of fresh paint even though both windows are open. They’ve painted the walls a simple baby blue and put up the train trim that FP had insisted his boy had to have. Gladys puts a hand on her stomach and leans against the doorframe. “Mama and baby are getting hungry.”</p><p>Fred gives her a goofy grin with paint on his chin, pulling the bandana he has tied around his head off. His hairs a flattened mess and Gladys can’t help but reach up to ruffle some of his curls free.</p><p>“Don’t pet him like that, Glads,” FP says, coming up behind Fred and wrapping an arm around his neck. “He’s like a stray dog. Might never go home if you show him too much loving.”</p><p>“Pretty sure Mary and Archie would object,” Fred says, jerking his elbow back into FP’s side.</p><p>“Wouldn’t want to steal another woman’s hound,” Gladys mutters, looking around the room. The crib is finally put together, mattress covered with a sheet and stuffed animals tenderly placed in the corner. “Baby, this looks real nice.”</p><p>“Thank Freddie,” FP murmurs, coming up behind Gladys and kissing the back of her neck. He puts his hands on her stomach and hums a little when he shifts inside her. Gladys groans a little, leaning back into FP. “Kicking hard. Fighter like his old man.”</p><p>“More like his mama,” Gladys murmurs, swaying slightly. FP hums against her neck in agreement. Gladys sighs and tries to ignore the way her heart clenches at the thought of her baby being angry like her, wanting everything and getting nothing like her. He kicks again inside her and Gladys tries to push the thought away. “Come on, Mr Jones, mama needs a milkshake.”</p><p>“Mary always complained that Pop’s made her nauseous,” Fred chimes in, packing away his painting equipment and turning down his tape player. “The smell of the place. Not the food. I don’t think any kid of mine could hate Pop’s food.”</p><p>“Does Mary know about this theory of yours?” Gladys asks with a laugh that sounds forced.</p><p>She kisses FP on the cheek and tries to smile for his sake but her thoughts are still stormy, still swirling with all the things this baby could inherit from her. Her temper. Her mood swings. Her mother’s sadness. Her father’s indifference. There’s so much bubbling inside of her, pouring into her baby boy, and it makes Gladys feel trapped in her own skin.</p><p>FP and Freddie are still joking around, putzing around the nursery, talking about how their boys are going to be best friends just like their old men. She smiles at how excited they both are, how happy they are. She tries to soak it up like sunlight, tries to absorb the feeling into her skin. Maybe if she could soak it up like a plant soaks up sunlight, it’ll chase away the trapped feeling in her chest and she can be happy too.</p><p>Forsythe Penelton Jones the Third is born the day the heat wave finally breaks in early October. Gladys’s water breaks while she’s talking on the phone with Mary about Halloween. Fred and FP want to do a couple’s costume together, completely unbothered by the fact that they’re both married.</p><p>“Freddie keeps saying that we can dress up as rocker babes to hang off of Wayne and Garth’s arms,” Mary explains with a sigh.</p><p>“I don’t think walking around with a beach ball attached to my waist makes me very rocker babe,” Gladys mutters. There’s a pinch in her side that makes her gasp a little.</p><p>“Glads?” Mary asks, concern in her voice. “You okay?”</p><p>“Just a little gassy,” Gladys mumbles, sitting down at the little dinette they have in the kitchen. The phone cable twists and curls around her ankles, tangling itself up. “Nothing to worry about.”</p><p>“You sure?” Mary asks, always a worry wart. “I can come over. Keep you company while the boys are at work. I’m sure Archie could use some sunshine.”</p><p>“Don’t worry about me, Mare,” Gladys mumbles, groaning when the pinch comes again sharper this time. “I’m fine. Promise.”</p><p>“You don’t sound fine,” Mary says. Archie screeches in the background but it doesn’t deter her one bit. “I’m coming over. You are in no condition to be sitting in that house all by yourself.”</p><p>Gladys opens her mouth to say something, anything, to change her mind but there’s a rush of pain and wetness between her legs. Gladys looks down with wide eyes at her feet and the small puddle of water there. It would be just her luck that this would happen now while FP is at work and she’s trying to save face in front of Mary Andrews.</p><p>“Just give me two shakes of a lamb’s tail and I’ll be there,” Mary is saying into the phone but it sounds like it's coming from underwater. Gladys doesn’t get the chance to say anything else before Mary hangs up the phone and Gladys is left with just the dial tone.</p><p>Gladys huffs and grabs a kitchen towel, barely managing to mop up the mess she’s made. She doesn’t want to have to come back after giving birth only to have to clean this up then. She waddles towards the door and grabs her go-bag and sandals, locks the house up and sits on the porch steps, waiting for Mary to pull up in her minivan.</p><p>Between telling Gladys to breathe, timing her contractions, and driving, Mary still manages to find enough time and breath to nag at her for trying to downplay contractions. Gladys hisses through her teeth and glares at Mary’s profile, “Not like this is my millionth time at this, Mary. How was I supposed to know?”</p><p>“Well don’t get an attitude with me about it now,” Mary snaps back, hands gripping the steering wheel tight as they pull into the emergency lane of the hospital. Gladys is helped from the van into a wheelchair and whisked away from Mary and Archie before she can say anything. Mary’s voice calls out to her just before a set of double doors close behind Gladys, “I’ll call FP! He’ll be here!”</p><p>Gladys refuses the cocktail of painkillers they offer her, opting to feel every burst of pain as she pushes her son into the world. FP shows up halfway through, face red and panting in the green scrubs the nurses had draped over his construction crew gear. Gladys tries to smile at him, tries to comfort him and chase away the panicked look in his eyes, but another contraction hits and she ends up screeching at him.</p><p>He takes her hand anyways and pushes her sweat soaked hair from her forehead, murmuring, “I’m here, baby. I’m here for you.”</p><p>“FP,” Gladys hisses, gritting her teeth and giving another violent push. She clutches FP’s hand tight, feeling the bones crunch in her grip. Her mouth falls open as another guttural scream bursts from behind her teeth. “Fuck me.”</p><p>“As soon as you’re done with this, baby, I promise,” FP mutters with a nervous laugh. Gladys glares at him but there’s a smirk curling at the corner of her mouth. FP gives her the biggest smile she’s ever seen on him and something settles in Gladys’s chest. “There’s my girl.”</p><p>“Last push, Mrs. Jones,” the doctor mutters, looking at her over the hump of her stomach. “I can see the head.”</p><p>FP kisses Gladys’s knuckles and moves towards the doctor to look for himself. Gladys holds his hand tight, doesn’t let him let go of her as she pushes with every fiber of her being. She squeezes her eyes closed and squeezes FP’s hand as she feels something give. There’s a gasp for air and nothing else but FP’s eyes are full of tears.</p><p>“There we go,” the doctor coos, handing FP a pair of scissors and taking a blanket from a nurse. “Dad, if you’ll do the honors.”</p><p>Gladys collapses into the pillows at her back, hand finally slipping from FP’s. She licks her dry lips and tries to catch her breath as the adrenaline seeps from her limbs. Her entire body feels heavy and sore and filthy but FP is turning to her with a bundle in his arms that has her smiling.</p><p>“Say hi to mom, kiddo,” FP whispers to the bundle, handing him over to Gladys. “He’s a quiet one, a thinker. Like his old man.”</p><p>Her arms feel so shaky and weak that she almost turns him away, almost tells him that she can’t be trusted with her son. But she can’t get her mouth to work in any possible way and her hands reach out to her son without her permission. He’s warm against her chest and the slow rise and fall of his chest makes it easier for her to breathe.</p><p>Her son looks up from his bundle of blankets with big blue green eyes that Gladys knows. She’s seen those eyes before a thousand times in her dreams and memories. Her mama’s eyes look up at her big and inquisitive and staring until the image in front of Gladys’s blurs. Tears stream down her cheeks and sobs burst from her lips as she presses her forehead to her baby. FP hovers next to her, hands not quite touching her, as he says, “Glads? Baby? You okay?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Gladys chokes out, looking up at FP with a big smile. She wraps a hand around the back of his neck and pulls him to her, kissing him squarely on the mouth. He looks confused when she pulls away but she doesn’t explain any further, just looks down at her shining baby boy. “Couldn’t want anything else.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>I could have been a great many things.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Gladys is seventeen and sneaking back into the house. Her face stings but it’s not enough to dull the buzz running just beneath her skin. Her lips are still puffy from Jenny’s kisses and she knows that her hair is a finger mussed mess. Usually, she would just climb the trestle back to her room, avoiding the downstairs entirely, but her mind is somewhere else after the night she’s just had. She barely even registers the living room light clicking on as the bottom stair in the foyer creaks beneath her foot.</p><p>“Gladys,” her father says, voice flat and tired and everything that makes her stomach sink to the bottoms of her feet. She doesn’t move from the stairs, biting her lip as she wonders if she could make it to her room before he could push himself out of his lazy boy chair. “Come in here, please.” She hesitates a moment long. “Now!”</p><p>Her feet move without her even thinking, her body reacting to that tone. She knows that tone, knows that she’s in deep shit right now. She’d been pushing the limits lately, staying out later and later, doing less and less for school. It was only a matter of time before she heard that tone from her father.</p><p>He’s sitting in his lazy boy just like she’s predicted, the side lamp casting an eerie shadow over his face. He’s playing a record, the volume turned down low so he could catch the sound of her coming into the house. There’s a scotch on the rocks on the mantle, the glass dripping with condensation.</p><p>Gladys wonders if it’s the first of the night or the last of many. She can’t quite see her father’s expression to figure it out for herself. But she doesn’t shirk away from the glare she can feel burning through her skin. It’s dark enough that he might not be able to tell what she’s done to her face but she knows he can see the way she’s swaying, that he can smell the smoke on her jacket. It’s obvious that she had been at a party.</p><p>“When are you going to grow up?” he asks slowly. The disgust in his voice is thick and it makes something stiffen in Gladys’s spine. “When are you going to stop playing these games, Gladys? Huh? You’re damn near eighteen and still pulling the same shit.”</p><p>Gladys doesn’t say anything back. She could. Good God, she could but she knows that the silence is what bothers him. He’s never been one for talking but he can’t stand to be ignored when he does decide to talk.</p><p>“I am not having a one-sided conversation, Gladys,” he says in the deep timber that haunts her nightmares. She curls her hands into fists and clenches her jaw tight, buckling down on her silence. “We have done this dance back and forth for years and I am goddamn tired of it, Gladys. What would your mother think?”</p><p>The taut string that is Gladys’s spine snaps and she sinks in on herself, whatever fight she’d been building up going out of her with a breath. Her eyes go distant before she spins on her heel and marches back out the front door. His voice echoes after her but she doesn’t turn back, doesn’t unclench her fists until she’s halfway across town and crawling through the kitchen window of her grandmother’s house.</p><p>The first winter in the house is the worst winter that Gladys has ever lived through. The house is old and the windows need replacing so every cold wind blows right through. Her job at the convenience store doesn’t pay her enough to keep the furnace running but she figures out how to set up a small generator so that she can run a space heater at night. It doesn’t do much but it’s better than the nights when she can’t afford to put gas in the generator.</p><p>She gets a griddle second-hand from the night manager. He doesn’t make a show of leaving it for her in the break room, just puts a hand on her shoulder as he’s clocking out for the day shift. “Damn thing’s just collecting dust in the garage. Let everyone know it’s up for grabs, alright?”</p><p>Eventually she adds a mini fridge to her dining room turned one bedroom efficiency - they’re replacing the one in the staff room even though there’s nothing wrong with it. She adds books and blankets and pillows scrounged from the local thrift store and does her best to turn the house with the peeling wallpaper into a home.</p><p>School stops being a priority pretty quickly and she gives up on the pretense of attending any of her classes. There’s a part of Gladys that’s heartbroken. Not that she’s missing out on the morons she goes to school with but that she won’t ever get to call herself a high school graduate. She’d dreamed of going to college one day, of getting as far away from her father as humanly possible and on her own merit to boot. Well, it certainly isn’t happening the way that she planned but she’s as far away from her father as she can get right now.</p><p>It takes two weeks for him to darken the doorway of the convenience store. Gladys isn’t surprised that he doesn’t bother coming by the house. He never went there when his mother was alive, why would he visit now that his only child was living in that falling down heap? At least, he waits until it’s night when most of the town is shut down and it’s less likely to cause a scene.</p><p>She waits him out. Waits for the lecture, the demand that she come back home. He doesn’t step past the red square of the carpet by the front door. He surveys the small convenience store with a dissatisfied frown that makes Gladys sit up a little straighter. She doesn’t look up from her book, doesn’t give him that small courtesy. She’s perfectly aware of how much it’ll irritate him.</p><p>“School called,” he says simply. He sighs, his shoulder moving up and down dramatically. It’s an obvious sign that she’s already getting under his skin, that her being away has bothered him. It's a victory that Gladys isn’t sure she wants to claim. “Says you haven’t been going to classes lately.”</p><p>Gladys turns the page.</p><p>“I understand needing to get your own space,” he continues with another weary sigh. “I was the same way.” It takes everything in Gladys not to laugh out loud at that one. “I understand the need for independence, to stand on your own two feet. But what we’re not going to do, Gladys Laurence, is abandon our duties.”</p><p>“And school is a duty?” Gladys mumbles in a flat voice. Her eyes dart to him for the briefest moment before she smirks. “Sir?”</p><p>“Don’t smart mouth me, Gladys,” he snaps, mouth pressing down into a thin line. She wonders briefly if he’s been drinking. She wouldn’t put it past him but Sergeant Laurence wasn’t one to drink and drive. “I’m talking about your future.”</p><p>“My future is my own business,” Gladys replies with an easy shrug. She hasn’t got the slightest idea what her future holds but she’ll be damned before she lets him know that. “I’ve got it all in hand.”</p><p>“You’ve got it all in hand, do you?” he mutters, nodding his head.</p><p>He looks around the convenience store again, eyes narrowed with distaste.</p><p>Gladys vaguely remembers an argument her parents had had about Mama getting a job. Gladys is sure she wanted something like this, something easy to while away the hours when Gladys was in school and he was at work. Gladys is sure that that argument had ended with a declaration of how his wife would act and Mama fell in line because she loved him and he loved her and that’s what one does for the person you love.</p><p>Gladys grits her teeth and turns the page blindly. If that’s what he’s expecting from this argument, that Gladys would just fall in line because that was what was expected of her then he had another thing coming.</p><p>“No daughter of mine is going to be dropping out of high school,” he says finally and it’s exactly what Gladys has been waiting for. “You are a Laurence and you will behave as a Laurence ought to.”</p><p>Gladys lets the silence settle around them for a long minute before she says, “You are something else. ‘As a Laurence ought to.’ Do you hear yourself?”</p><p>“Do not talk to me like that,” he snaps, shoulders pulling back and heels clicking together. His lips barely move as he speaks. “I will not tolerate it.”</p><p>“You sound like an after-school special,” Gladys says, shaking her head. “All this talk of how I should be acting. As if you’re some shining beacon of how a Laurence should be. As if everyone in this town doesn’t already know what you are.”</p><p>He opens his mouth, wide and mean so that she can see the fillings at the back of his jaw, but he doesn’t get to make a sound. Her manager comes from the back room, hands on his hips and shit-eating grin on his face. Gladys rolls her eyes and crosses her arms. “Hey there, Bud.”</p><p>“Everything okay out here? Gladys isn’t giving you too much sass, is she?” Bud says with a laugh that does nothing to lighten the mood of the room. Her father gives Bud a tight nod that makes it clear he’s not one for jokes. Bud doesn’t seem to get the message. “You know what they say, these days. Hard to find good work and all that.”</p><p>“He’s not here for the service, Bud,” Gladys says. She props up her chin in her hand and raises her eyebrows at her father. “He’s my daddy.”</p><p>“Gladys,” Bud says with a tired sigh. “Please don’t make jokes at the customer’s expense.”</p><p>“Who said I was joking?” Gladys asks with a frown. She looks at her father and gestures him forward. “Tell him, dad. Tell him how I’m the apple of your eye. Your one and only.”</p><p>“I’m sorry, sir,” Bud says, wiping his hands on the front of his pants. He licks his lips and nervously looks between Gladys and her father. “She isn’t usually this uppity with anyone other than me.”</p><p>“Don’t apologize, Bud,” Gladys says through her teeth. She’s forcing a smile onto her face but her hands are shaking. She can’t pull her eyes away from her father but he isn’t looking at her. He never seems to be able to look at her when it matters. “There’s nothing to apologize for. Not to Sergeant Laurence. Sergeant Laurence doesn’t accept apologies. Those are just excuses, so don’t apologize, Bud.”</p><p>“That’s enough, Gladys,” Bud hisses, marching towards the counter and sounding more like a father than anything she’s ever experienced herself. Bud pulls up short when he sees the tears on her cheeks. She hates the startled look on his face but she refuses to break away from the staring match she’s having with her father. “Gladys?”</p><p>“I’m fine!” Gladys snaps viciously. Her father inhales sharply before turning on his heel and walking out of the store. She watches him go and tries to swallow down the urge to chase after him. She’s not a little girl with skinned-knees anymore. She wipes at her face and swallows down that yearning want, nodding once to herself. “I’m fine.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> …marriage, they say, halves one's rights and doubles one's duties.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Gladys is twenty-six and FP is down on one knee asking her to leave Toledo with him. He’s kicked out of basic training, flunked out to be more appropriate. He’d had until the end of the month to get out but instead he’d gone out with Billy the night before and had shown up to the barracks drunk.</p><p>Sgt Laurance couldn’t tolerate such behavior especially not from a colossal fuck-up like FP Jones. It didn’t help that everyone in town knew that he was shacking up with Gladys on the weekends. Gladys knows that FP’s lucky he didn’t get a black eye for his troubles instead of being escorted out of the barracks by an MP.</p><p>“Are you serious, FP?” Gladys groans, covering her face with both hands. She shouldn’t be so angry but she can’t help it, can’t help the fire burning through her veins. “You know Billy is bad fucking news. You know that!”</p><p>“It doesn’t matter!” FP shouts back but he doesn’t get off his knee. He stays down there with a stubborn frown on his face. “Army was never for me. We both know that.”</p><p>Gladys scoffs and rolls her eyes before staring down at him with her hands on her hips. His big blue eyes are so sweet looking up at her. It pinches at something inside of her and she clenches her fist against the feeling. FP takes her hand and presses his lips to her palm. She jerks back like he’d bitten her.</p><p>“What are you expecting here, F?” Gladys asks, running the hand he kissed through her hair. Not for the first time, she wishes she hadn’t cut it so damn short. She misses the length, misses the curls she’d gotten from her father. “You think I’m just gonna run away with you? I got a life here.”</p><p>“You call all this shit a life?” FP asks with a scoff. He finally stands up and looks her square in the eye. “Look at where you live, Gladys. At where you work. Where you spend your time. You call any of this a life?”</p><p>“And what you’re offering is so much better?” Gladys asks, tilting her head back. She knows her life is crap. She doesn’t need him pointing it out to her just to win a fucking arguement. “I may not have much FP Jones but it’s mine. I earned every penny, every inch of this place.”</p><p>“This place?” FP says, throwing his head back and laughing. “This falling down wreck of a house that isn’t even in your name, Gladys! It’s not yours. It’s your father’s. The bike outside? Bought with your father’s fucking money! You’re barely floating by on that bartender pay and without your daddy’s help you’d have nothing.”</p><p>Gladys jerks back, feeling like she’s been slapped. He might as well have. It probably would hurt less than having all of that thrown in her face. FP groans as soon as he’s done talking. He may act like a moron but he wasn’t stupid enough to not know when he’s crossed a line. It’s not like Gladys is very good at hiding her emotions, she’s sure the hurt and the anger is clear on her face.</p><p>“Glads,” FP murmurs, kneeling down again. He bypasses taking her hand and presses his forehead to her stomach, hands hot and heavy on the outside of her thighs. Gladys crosses her arms over her chest and resists the urge to run her fingers through his hair. The buzzcut has grown out a bit, not enough to make him look like anything other than a grunt, but it’s getting better. “I can’t leave you behind.”</p><p>“You can’t?” Gladys mutters with a scoff. “Or you won’t?”</p><p>“Both?” FP answers with a shrug. He doesn’t stand up, doesn’t let go of her hips, just lays kisses along the waistband of her jeans. His mouth is warm and wet against her skin and Gladys shivers even though she doesn’t want to. “Don’t make me leave you behind, Glads. Please.”</p><p>“I can’t just drop everything and chase after you like some school girl, FP,” Gladys murmurs, running her fingers through his hair over and over again. “You can’t ask me to do that.”</p><p>“I’m not!” FP insists. He inhales deeply and bangs his head against her stomach just enough to make them both sway. “I just,” he huffs and looks up at her through his lashes, “I love you, Gladys.”</p><p>Gladys’s heart stops beating in her chest and she thinks he might just be choking on air. Her hands start to shake in his hair and there are tears in her eyes. It’s the stupidest goddamn reaction to have but she’s having it despite her better judgement. She doesn’t say anything back, just drops to her knees and presses her mouth to his. He wraps his arms around her waist and holds her tight, kissing her back hard.</p><p>Gladys pushes herself forward, knocking FP back so that he’s sitting and she can crawl into his lap. She wraps her legs around his waist and wraps her arms around his neck. She wonders briefly if she’s strangling him but he just groans and bites at her lips through their kisses. Gladys hisses and pulls away, cupping his face in both hands and slowing the franticness of their kisses. She pants into his mouth and whispers, “I ain’t gonna marry you, FP Jones.”</p><p>FP opens his mouth to protest but she covers his lips with shaking fingers. She kisses him with her fingers in between their mouths and shushes softly, “I ain’t gonna marry you but I do love you. So I’m yours, Jones, okay? I’m yours until the day I die.”</p><p>“Good enough,” FP groans before yanking her hand out of the way and kissing her silly.</p><p>Gladys sinks into him, grinds her hips down onto his, and damn near laughs when he groans. She loves him. She knows she does. It was fast and fierce and nothing like Gladys Laurence thought it would be. Sure, she’s been in love before but it’s never knocked her sideways like this, never made her blood sing the way he does. He pisses her off and makes her laugh and loves her so well. So goddamn well. It nearly makes her sick.</p><p>The house had never been in her name so it’s no hassle to pack up her few meager belongings into some boxes. She trades her bike in for a pickup truck to lug all of her shit out of Toledo. FP’s things all fit into the army sized duffle bag he’d gotten at the base.</p><p>She thinks about stopping by her father’s house to tell him goodbye, to tell him anything before she leaves town for the first time in her life. She makes it about as far as the stop sign up the street from the house she’d grown up in. She can’t make herself go any further. Not after the years of silence that’s stretched between them. He could have reached out, afterall. He could have swallowed his damned pride for once and come to her.</p><p>Gladys clenches the steering wheel and hisses through her breath. She makes a wide u-turn without thinking about it anymore. Besides, he probably isn’t even home and FP is waiting for her at the base. She’s driving out of the town an hour later with FP’s hand holding onto hers.</p><p>Riverdale is everything that FP said it would be. A small town that’s so much like home that it chafes. She feels like she sticks out like a sore thumb with her plain brown hair and midwest accent but FP is so damn happy to be back. She can see it in the way his shoulders relax, the way his smiles a little brighter. She’d known that he missed home. Of course she knew. But seeing it in real time makes all the aches and pains and longings worth it.</p><p>He still has his trailer in Sunnyside. A single wide with one bedroom and a padlock on the door. He doesn’t explain how the damn thing had stayed locked up while he was away. Based on the neighbors, Gladys doesn’t think that they’re in the best part of town. Not that it’s anything she isn’t used to. At least there’s heat and hot water here, two luxuries that Gladys had learned to live without at her grandmother’s house.</p><p>“I’ll get work,” FP promises after they’ve fully settled in. Gladys has unpacked her things - books, mostly, and a few photos of her mother. There’s a singing fish on the wall that makes Gladys laugh and an ugly carpet in the living room but she finds herself liking the FP-ness of the space and doesn’t change much. “White Wyrm is always looking for bartenders.”</p><p>“You ever sling drinks before?” Gladys asks as she flips through her book, looking for her place after her bookmark fell out. She’s half distracted but the thought of FP behind a bar makes her smirk. He’s just as likely to drink his customer’s drinks as he is to actually serve them.</p><p>“Can’t be that hard,” FP mutters with a stubborn pout. Gladys snorts and shakes her head. “It’s just a bunch of old drunk bikers - how bad can it be?”</p><p>He manages to hold it together for a few rough months. Gladys gets a job slinging shakes at the local diner. She hates the yellow mustard dress that she has to wear but the tips are good and the hours are flexible. They fight - FP’s drinking is a problem, an annoying one at its worst and a fun one at its best - and they make up. It’s not perfect. Far from it, in fact, but it’s a life and she tells herself that she’s happy. Tells herself that she doesn’t feel like she’s made a leap without a landing in sight.</p><p>It all blows up in her face one night when Gladys gets a call at the trailer. Apparently, FP hopped over the bar and smashed a glass into some moron’s face. Gladys never gets the full story, just the call from Hogeye that she needed to come collect her man. Gladys rolls her eyes when she hangs up the phone and pulls her hair back into a ponytail. She shrugs on one of FP’s flannels and slips her feet into her boots for the short walk over to the bar.</p><p>FP is sitting outside on the curb, a tall man standing over him and talking down to him. Gladys doesn’t like the look of the pair, doesn’t like the way FP seems to shrink in front of the man with the snake on his back. Gladys may not be from Riverdale but she’s been living in the trailer park long enough to know about the Southside Serpents. She picks up her pace a little as she crosses the parking lot and catches the tail end of their conversation.</p><p>“What did I tell you when you signed up?” the man is saying. “Southside is always gonna be your home, boy. Where are your little Northside buddies from school? Where are they when you’re struggling?”</p><p>“Roger,” FP groans, dropping his head into his hands. “Don’t.”</p><p>“You come into my place,” this Roger keeps going. “And you start a ruckus and you tell <em>me</em> don’t? At least you came back with a spine, I suppose.”</p><p>“FP?” Gladys calls out, kicking stones at Roger as she walks by him. “You okay?”</p><p>“Glads?” FP murmurs, jerking up to his feet. He’s clearly drunk. Gladys can see it in the way he pops his hip out, how he tucks his hand into the back of his jeans to stay up straight. “What’re you doing here?”</p><p>“Hogeye called,” Gladys murmurs. “Said you needed help getting home.”</p><p>“I can make the half mile walk to the trailer,” FP mumbles, pouting a little. Gladys almost laughs at him but the pointed cough from behind her reminds her that they’re not alone. FP straightens up a little and takes Gladys by the arm, pulling her into his side. “Gladys, let me introduce you to Roger Smith. He’s, uh, the local motorcycle club’s president.”</p><p>“Nice to meet you,” Roger says, nodding at her. He eyes her up and down, makes her feel threatened and dirty all at once. She’s known men like him. She doesn’t like men like him. “Gladys? Didn’t catch a last name.”</p><p>“Just Gladys is fine,” Gladys says before FP can speak up again. She wraps her arm around FP’s waist and looks up at him with a sweet smile. “Walk me home, good looking?”</p><p>“Gladly,” FP murmurs, leaning down to kiss her forehead. He wraps his around her shoulders, leaning into her a little more. He nods at Roger Smith, gives him a little crooked smile. “Can’t say no to the old lady.”</p><p>“No, you can not,” Roger says slowly. Gladys doesn’t spare him a goodbye before guiding FP away from the man. “I’ll be seeing you, Miss Gladys. Take care of our boy, yeah?”</p><p>Gladys throws a hand up in a wave but doesn’t answer or turn around. She can feel Roger staring at them the entire way across the parking lot. Once they step back into the trailer park, Gladys pushes FP away from her. He stumbles a little before straightening up and glaring at her. She scoffs and wraps her arms around her waist before marching away from him.</p><p>“Gladys,” FP growls from behind her. She knows that voice. That’s his gearing up for a fight voice. That’s fine. She’s ready for a fight tonight. “Gladys, I’m talking to you.”</p><p>“And I’m walking away, FP,” Gladys shouts over her shoulder. A dog barks and a screen door slams shut. The neighbors are listening. Hard not to listen when you’re barely a few feet away from each other.</p><p>“Stop doing that and talk to me,” FP snaps. Gladys can hear him chasing after her but she doesn’t slow down her pace. The front of their trailer is in sight, the haven that they’ve created is waiting for them and that’s where Gladys needs to be right now. FP grabs her arm and pulls her to a stop, turning her to face him. “What’s your problem?”</p><p>“You,” Gladys snaps, pulling her arm free and adjusting the flannel. “You are my fucking problem, FP!”</p><p>“What the fuck did I do?” FP asks with the audacity to look offended. Gladys scoffs and sneers at him. He laughs a little, bitter and mean, and the corner of his mouth quirks up in that smirk that she loves to hate. “The Wyrm? That’s nothing. It doesn’t matter. I’ll get another job.”</p><p>“Where, FP?” Gladys asks, waving her hands around. “Tell me that first and maybe I wouldn’t be so fucking angry. Maybe then I wouldn’t be wondering why the fuck I followed you halfway across the country like I did.”</p><p>“You love me,” FP says slowly, taking a step closer to her. Gladys holds up both hands, back stiffening up, and FP stops. It doesn’t shut him up though. “You love me and I love you and <em>that’s</em> why you followed me.”</p><p>Gladys doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t have anything to say. He’s right. They both know it. But it doesn’t do anything to calm her temper, it doesn’t do anything to fix whatever it is that’s breaking between them. Because Gladys knows that’s what’s happening. She feels it deep in her gut. Whatever thrill she’d gotten by following FP is fading away and the reality of the situation is sinking in.</p><p>She’s in a new town. With no job. No money. She doesn’t know anyone in town. All she has is FP and the thought isn’t nearly as comforting as it should be. Gladys swallows down the tightness in her throat and licks her lips. Her voice is shaky when she says, “I need a break, FP. I need time.”</p><p>“Time?” FP asks. He nods a couple times and looks away from her, sniffing loudly. “You need time.”</p><p>“I’ll find somewhere to stay,” Gladys continues. She keeps licking her lips, keeps choking back her tears. She’s stronger than that. She knows she is and she will keep it together, goddammit. “I can take care of myself. We both know that.”</p><p>“You’re serious,” FP says after a long minute of silence. Gladys barely hears him over the general sounds of the park. “You’re actually serious.”</p><p>“I can’t keep doing this with you, FP,” Gladys says, shaking her head. “I can’t keep cleaning you up and fighting and making up and playing the same game over and over again. It’s exhausting and I am tired.”</p><p>“I <em>love</em> you,” FP repeats. “That’s got to count for something.”</p><p>“It counts, FP,” Gladys says with a nod. She sniffs loudly and wipes at her cheek with the sleeve of her shirt. Of course she’s crying and she hates it. “It counts and I love you, too.”</p><p>He doesn’t follow her to the trailer and Gladys knows that it’s better that way. She packs a bag, grabs her jacket and climbs into her truck. She doesn’t want to be there whenever FP gets back. He’ll be drunk. Drunker than he already is and Gladys doesn’t want to be an audience to that performance.</p><p>Gladys clenches the steering wheel tight as she leaves the trailer park. She doesn’t know where she’s going, doesn’t really have a destination in mind, but she can’t stay here. She won’t stay here. Not in Riverdale where FP knows every dark corner that she could hide herself in. She drives out to Centerville and gets a room in a seedy motel. The receptionist sits behind a glass wall and raises her eyebrows when she requests a single bed.</p><p>The room isn’t that much nicer than her house in Toledo or the trailer but it’s got a bed and there aren’t any mites. Gladys isn’t going to be picky. Not tonight at least. Tonight she’s going to sleep and tomorrow she’ll be picky. Tomorrow she’ll go back to Pop’s and quit. She’ll find a job that she doesn’t hate, find a place to stay that doesn’t make her sick. Tomorrow is for wanting but tonight she gets to rest.</p><p>She spends a month on her own. A month reading books and staying in that motel room and eating microwave meals. She hasn’t left Centerville, hasn’t reached out to FP. She’s stuck in a holding pattern, waiting for something - for someone - to come by and jolt her into movement again. Gladys knows herself enough to know why she’s waiting, what she’s waiting for, <em>who</em> she’s waiting for.</p><p>On the second day of month two, Gladys packs her bags. She checks out of the motel room. Quits her job at the library. She gets in her truck and she drives to Riverdale. She goes straight to the trailer park, straight to FP’s trailer. He still has a hide-a-key by the door and Gladys lets herself in.</p><p>Not much has changed in the month that she’s been gone. It’s a little dustier, a few more empty plates scattered around the living room. Gladys sighs and moves around the place, cleaning up a bit to keep her hands busy. He’s bound to come home sometime and she refuses to just sit there the whole time with nothing to do.</p><p>Once the dishes are done, Gladys opens the fridge. There isn’t much - half a package of hot dogs, spotty potatoes, and half soft root vegetables. She takes the time to chop it all up and fills a pot with water. She raids the few spices that FP has and spruces up the makeshift soup as best she can.</p><p>She leaves it to simmer while she goes back to the living room to pick a book to read. Her fingers dance across the spines she had to leave behind when she left that night. She pulls something easy, something she’s read before, and goes back to the kitchen to keep stirring her soup. She doesn’t know how long she lounges in the trailer until FP finally comes through the door, calling her name, “Gladys?”</p><p>“Back here!” Gladys calls, dog earing her page and tasting the soup. It’s not bad. Not great but not bad either. FP comes into the kitchen carrying a hard hat and covered in dust. Gladys raises her eyebrows at him and rests her hip against the counter. “Aren’t you filthy?”</p><p>“What are you doing here?” FP asks, staring at her with wide eyes. His face is thinner and there’s the beginnings of a beard growing on his cheeks. He looks okay. Not great but okay.</p><p>“Wanted to talk,” Gladys says with a shrug. She wipes her hands on her shirt - the same flannel she’d stolen from his closet that last night - and grabs a bowl from the cabinet. “I made soup. If you’re hungry, I mean.”</p><p>“I could eat,” FP mumbles. He seems almost dazed by her presence, that she actually came back to him. He sits down at the small table they have in the corner and watches Gladys dish him up some soup. She sits across from him and rests her chin in the palm of her hand. FP stares at the soup for a long minute before looking up at her. “You wanted to talk?”</p><p>“Wanna come home,” Gladys explains with a shrug. FP exhales and leans back, tucking his hands behind his head. “Don’t need anymore time.”</p><p>“And I’m supposed to just let you back in?” FP says before throwing his arms out. “Arms wide open!”</p><p>“You don’t have to,” Gladys says with a shrug. She leans back and tries to ignore the way her stomach twists up. This was always a possibility. She knows that, knows it as well as anything, but it doesn’t change how much it hurts to think about him turning her away. “You can kick me out. Tell me to go back to Toledo. Tell me you don’t love me and I’ll go.”</p><p>“Fuck, Gladys,” FP groans, rubbing his hands down his face. “You’ve been gone a month.”</p><p>“I know,” Gladys says with a nod. She doesn’t sugar coat it, doesn’t try to smooth this over. She knows there isn't a way to do it. “But I still love you, FP Jones.”</p><p>“I know you do,” FP says with a nod. “Wouldn’t be here if you didn’t, right?”</p><p>“Right.”</p><p>FP sighs and leans his arms on the table. He stares down at his soup for another long minute before he reaches into his pocket and takes out a small ring box. Gladys doesn’t move, just waits for him to make his move. He flicks the box open and holds his other hand out for her. She offers up her left hand without hesitation.</p><p>“Marry me, Gladys,” FP says softly as he takes the small diamond ring out of the box. He slides it onto her ring finger before she answers. He runs his thumb over her knuckles and sighs. “The last month’s been hell. Absolute hell. So marry me and stay. If you want.”</p><p>Gladys squeezes his hand tight and takes a deep breath before she answers, “Yeah, FP, I want. I really, really do.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>'m afraid I couldn't like him without a spice of human naughtiness.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Gladys is twenty-six when Billy calls out to the latest recruit that he’s taken under his wing, “Jones!”</p><p>Gladys raises an eyebrow from her spot at the end of the bar and shakes her head. It's the same every time there’s a new bunch of recruits. They’ll go through hell for the first few weeks, forget all about mom and dad and the swell girl they left behind, before Billy takes pity and drags a select few into the bar. They always drink too much and laugh too loud and forget that no means no.</p><p>Doesn’t mean that she doesn’t look over her shoulder to see what the newest bunch looks like. There’s just the one tonight instead of the usual gaggle of goons and he doesn’t look like the typical grunt recruit even with the buzzcut.</p><p>He’s short. Shorter than Billy but cute in a way that the hometown boys never managed. Cute isn’t usually enough to keep her attention, not when she knows it’s not going to last. He’ll get shipped out and she’ll be left in this go-nowhere town.</p><p>He raises an eyebrow at her and smirks a little and despite her best interests, she blushes and turns away quickly. She orders another gin and tonic just to wash the taste of embarrassment out of her mouth.</p><p>She finishes her drink slowly, eyes scanning over the book she’d brought with her. She’s read <em>Little Women</em> a million times before so her eyes keep drifting over to Billy and the shortie. There’s something about his face that keeps drawing her eyes back to him.</p><p>He’s nothing but sharp cheekbones and sharp eyes, not intelligent or anything like that but they pull you in all the same. His mouth doesn’t ever seem to lose the smirk but she has the feeling that if he were to smile it would be damn near blinding. Of course, he catches her watching and that damned smirk stretches into a lazy grin. Gladys huffs and finishes her drink in one long gulp.</p><p>Billy shouts something, laughing loudly shortly after. Gladys knows that laugh. It’s the laugh that says that Billy’s damned near black out drunk. It’s a good time to get the hell out of the bar if you’re a woman on your own. Everyone in town knew about Billy Menken’s wandering hands. She’s putting her book in her purse when the cutie drops into the bar chair next to her.</p><p>“Is he always like that?” the cutie asks her as she puts her empty glass onto the bar with her eyebrows raised. She hadn’t noticed him making his way across the bar. She hadn’t actually thought he would have the guts to do it. “What? Cat got your tongue?”</p><p>“You don’t know me, mister,” Gladys says, shaking her head. “And I don’t know you.”</p><p>“Mister? Man, I’m not <em>that </em>old am I?” he says with a laugh that’s a little rough in all of the right ways. Gladys rolls her eyes and tries not to smile. “Pretty sure I’m only 21.”</p><p>“Doesn’t make you anything other than a mister, mister,” Gladys says because she can’t help herself. She finally starts to walk away but he reaches out to grab her wrist. Gladys flinches back and scowls.</p><p>“Sorry!” he says, holding both hands up. “Sorry.”</p><p>“Just, keep your hands to yourself, yeah?” she says as she adjusts her jacket and tries to get her hands to stop shaking. “Not nice to grab a lady without her permission.”</p><p>“And what can I do to get her permission?” he asks, leaning towards her with a little smirk. She’s pretty sure that smirk worked on every girl in his hometown. She refuses to let it work now.</p><p>“Billy! I think your boy here needs another drink!” Gladys shouts, keeping eye contact with the cutie. He groans and covers his face when Billy starts shouting about how no friend of his is going to have an empty glass. “Have fun!”</p><p>She slips out the front of the bar and breathes in the fresh air before digging in her purse for a smoke. She can still hear Billy yelling inside. She almost feels bad for the poor guy. It was obvious that he wasn’t interested in the kind of friendship Billy Menken was offering. Not that she blamed him. She’d been witness to her fair share of Bender Nights with Billy. They rarely ended well. <em>Billy</em> always made it back to base. His newly minted friends? Not so much.</p><p>Gladys rolls her eyes at herself, stomping out her cigarette before marching back inside and going up to the cutie. He’s staring down a shot glass that Billy is filling. There’s something queasy in his face that makes Gladys wonder what number shot this even is - she swears she was only gone for five minutes. She snatches the glass just as Billy finishes filling it to the top.</p><p>“Bottoms up,” she cheers before tossing it back. She smiles at Billy and drapes her arm across the cutie’s shoulders. He tenses for a second before sinking into her side. Billy looks between the two of them, raising his eyebrows and smiling like a damn fool.</p><p>“You take good care of our boy, FP,” Billy says, patting FP on the chest. “Don’t treat him too rough, Gladys.”</p><p>“Aw, Billy, you know I like a little rough,” Gladys says with a wink that has Billy howling as he stumbles away. Gladys leans down and whispers into FP’s ear. “You’re gonna wanna thank me for that.”</p><p>“Am I?” he asks as he leans his forehead against the bar. Gladys hisses and reaches forward to pull him back up. “What?”</p><p>“That bar is nasty,” she says with a laugh as she cups his face and makes him look at her. “You don’t want any skin to touch it.”</p><p>“That’s two thank yous I owe you now,” he mutters. “Why’re you being so nice?”</p><p>“Are you saying I’m not nice?” Gladys asks. She still has her hands on his face but he doesn’t seem to mind. He presses into it almost, like a cat seeking a good scratch. She says as much and she’s greeted with a lopsided smile that makes her stomach flip over. “Come on, FP Jones. Let’s get you out of here.”</p><p>“How’d you know my last name?” he asks, narrowing his eyes at her. She doesn’t know if it’s suspicion or if he’s just that drunk but she decides that it’s another tick in the cute column.</p><p>“Come with me if you want to find out,” she whispers before pulling away entirely and helping him stand up. He’s steadier on his feet than she expected and she’s grateful for that since she’s on the bike tonight. He trails after her into the parking lot, a hand on her lower back and hot through her shirt.</p><p>“You know, I think you quoted the Terminator back there,” FP says as he stretches back and looks up at the sky. She watches him warily, expecting him to topple over, but he just straightens up and smiles at her. “Thanks for the rescue from Billy and the bar.”</p><p>“Anytime, Private,” Gladys says with a smirk. “Listen, you’re going to make it back to base alright?”</p><p>FP shoves his hands into his pockets and looks around the parking lot before shrugging. He snorts and waves a hand at her muttering, “Don’t worry about me. I can walk.”</p><p>“Do you even know where you are?” Gladys asks, hating herself for asking. She’s done her good deed of the night but he gives her a shy smile that seems a little more real than the smirk from inside the bar and she knows that she’s done for. “Fuck it. Come on, Private. You’re crashing with me tonight.”</p><p>“But - and no offense - but I don’t really know you,” he says following her as she walks to her bike. He whistles and runs his hand over the handlebars. “This is nice.”</p><p>“You can either walk back to the base, try to catch a bus, or you can come back to mine and I’ll make sure you’re back before you get into any trouble,” Gladys says, giving him her best winning smile. She climbs onto the bike and that must be what seals the deal because he’s climbing on and wrapping his arms around her waist. “Good choice.”</p><p>“I just want to know how she feels,” he mutters as he shifts in the seat. Gladys snorts and rolls her eyes at the obvious innuendo. “The bike, I mean. The bike.”</p><p>“You missing your baby?” Gladys asks as she gets situated.</p><p>“Something like that,” he replies without an ounce of shame. She decides she likes that, too. “Never owned my own. Ran with a crew back home though so I was around ‘em a lot.”</p><p>She nods and tucks the information away. She knows she shouldn’t and she spends the entire ride back to her house kicking herself for it.</p><p>He whistles again when he sees her house. Gladys isn’t sure if it’s admiration for the size or how rundown it is. She scratches the back of her neck and waves at it as she explains, “My grandmother’s house. Been abandoned since she died but it’s still okay on the inside. Free is good for me, you know?”</p><p>“Yeah, no kidding,” he replies. He tucks an arm behind his back and cocks out his hip. “You gonna show me inside?”</p><p>“Come on, Mr Smooth,” Gladys says, gesturing him up the front steps.</p><p>The front door sticks like usual and she gives FP a tight lipped smile. He’s inspecting the paint of the porch railing and it’s another mark in the like column. The house is cold but she knows there’s enough kerosene in the stove to at least warm up the living room.</p><p>“Make yourself comfortable,” she says as she hurries to get the stove lit. “I’ll have this place warmed up in no time.”</p><p>“You sleep down here?” he asks, pointing at the mattress by the broken fireplace. She’d boarded it up as soon as she’d moved in. It didn’t work and was more likely to just let endless cold air in during winter and bugs during the summer.</p><p>“Easier to stay warm down here than upstairs,” she says with a shrug that’s a far cry from how casual she wants it to be. “You too good for a mattress on the floor, Mr. Jones?”</p><p>“What’s with this mister crap?” FP asks as he drops down onto the mattress. He doesn’t bother taking his boots off before laying back and closing his eyes. “I ain’t no mister.”</p><p>“So you said,” she mutters before kicking at his boot. “Don’t get mud on my sheets. Take those boots off.”</p><p>“You going to murder me and turn my bones into a windchime?” he asks as he raises his leg and reaches for the loose laces. He manages to pull the knot loose on each foot before dropping his legs back down. Gladys watches with an amused smirk as he toes his boots off, managing to keep his socks on, with his eye closed the entire time. “You going to bash my knees in so I can’t run away?”</p><p>“You watch too many movies, you know that?” Gladys asks as she heads into the kitchen for a beer.</p><p>“We got this drive-in back home,” he replies, words slurring together with sleep and drunkenness. “Only thing to do in little old Riverdale during the summer.”</p><p>“And the winter?”</p><p>When she comes back, FP is snoring gently with his mouth hanging open. She scoffs and rolls her eyes before getting comfortable in her lazy boy chair and cracking open the beer. She should sleep. It’s late and there’s no calling out of work the next day just because she’s a moron who invited a stranger to sleep in her bed.</p><p>She doesn’t pay attention to the time, just sips her beer and watches FP sleep. His face is a lot softer now that he’s not awake. Softer and sweeter. She wants to keep looking, wants to map out each crease of his face. It’s a dumb urge. One she’s felt before. She knows that it’ll pass, that he’ll go back to the base and get shipped out and she’ll never see him again.</p><p>Still. Gladys takes the opportunity for what it is and kneels down on the mattress next to FP. She traces the shape of his eyebrow and the curve of his lip with her finger, doing her best not to wake him up. She shifts a little, brushing her knuckles along the edge of his buzzcut. It’s enough for him to shift around, hand reaching up to bat her fingers away, and mumble, “Back off, Freddie.”</p><p>“Ain’t no Freddie here,” Gladys says with another smile. FP slowly opens his eyes and blinks at her. He looks around the room but makes no move to get off the mattress. “That your brother?”</p><p>“Something like that,” FP says, rubbing a hand down his face. He looks at her again and there’s a new calculating look in his eye that she adds to the likes that she’s keeping count of in her head. “If you’re not a Freddie, mind telling me what your name is?”</p><p>“You telling me you’ve forgotten already, handsome? After the night we shared?” she asks, smiling bright at the way his eyes widen for a second. “Don’t worry, kid, your virtue is intact.”</p><p>“One: I ain’t no kid and two: my virtue is the last thing on my mind,” FP replies with a crooked smile that’s definitely growing on Gladys. “You do this often?”</p><p>“Do what?”</p><p>“Drag home drunk grunts?”</p><p>“No,” she says, shaking her head. “Not often.”</p><p>“Then why do it with me? If I remember right, you weren’t too interested in being friendly,” FP says slowly. He puts a hand on her knee and looks up at her with raised eyebrows. His palm is hot through her jeans but she doesn’t move his hand, just watches the way his thumb moves back and forth over her thigh. “You’re being awfully friendly now.”</p><p>“Billy Menken is a jackass,” Gladys says with a shrug. “You should find better friends on base than him.”</p><p>“What about friends off-base?” he asks with the sexy smirk that is starting to batter down her own defenses. “I could always do with one of those.”</p><p>“My last name is Laurence,” Gladys says suddenly, waiting for the ball to drop.</p><p>He frowns a little before it clicks and he mumbles, “Your dad is Sgt. Laurence?”</p><p>“The one and only,” she says, shaking her head. “Still want to be friends?”</p><p>“Your dad is a piece of work, you know that?” he says with a laugh that’s a little too bitter.</p><p>“I grew up with the bastard, didn’t I?” she snaps, glaring at him.</p><p>“You tell me that to scare me off, then?”</p><p>“Did it work?”</p><p>He sits up and kisses the corner of her mouth. She freezes and he pulls away just far enough to look her in the eye. She bites her lip and he touches the stars by her eye. She leans into his palm a little and she’s treated with a smile that actually reaches his eyes. She knew it was going to be blinding.</p><p>“You’re something else Gladys Laurence,” he says softly.</p><p>“You don’t even know me.”</p><p>“Want to know you,” he replies before leaning in and kissing the other corner of her mouth. He slides a hand to the back of her neck and holds her still as he kisses different spots of her face. His breath is warm against her skin and smells like cheap whiskey. “If you want?”</p><p>“Yeah,” she mutters and it’s painfully true how much she wants right now. “Yeah, I want.”</p>
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